i had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain
by piratesmiley
Summary: It takes Skye two seconds to realize they are seducing her, and another second to realize it is seriously working. (In which Skye, to her absolute horror, falls in love with the science babies.)


Some Fitzskimmons for you. Spoilers for 1x14.

* * *

Actually, Skye's never had _I'm so glad you're alive_ sex.

Until now.

This is supposed to be funny. This is supposed to be a nice little distraction. But it's not feeling that way right now.

It had been funny at first. It hadn't been a _joke_, otherwise they wouldn't be doing this right now. But it had been funny. Simmons was running through all of Skye's medical stats like the listings on the back of a baseball card, each meaning zip to her patient. Skye herself was sitting cross-legged, in her own clothes for the first time, on the bed; the medical pod was now merely a ceremonial spot for the grand incomprehensible speech Simmons was giving that aggregated, Skye assumed, to mean that she was okay now. Fitz was silent, standing dutifully by his partner.

Skye waited patiently for the end of Simmons' gibberish. "So that means…?"

"You're all clear. Medically, you're cleared for strenuous activity; you're cleared to start training again, for going out in the field, and for sex."

Skye snorted as she dismounted the bed. "Yeah, I don't think that last one is going to matter, but thanks."

"It might matter," Simmons said tentatively. Skye looked up.

"Oh yeah? Why is that?" Skye rounded the bed to stand in front of them.

"We were thinking…"Fitz started, looking at the floor.

"Maybe you could have sex with us," Simmons finished, and they both peeked up her, looking half-eager, half-guilty. Just like Skye liked them.

Her eyebrow quirked. "Seriously?"

They both nodded. "Consider it a celebration," Fitz said.

"We're really glad you're alive," Simmons said, inching towards her. It takes Skye two seconds to realize they are seducing her, and another second to realize it is seriously working.

Skye couldn't remember exactly what her response was, or even if it was in English, but she did remember the feeling of each of them taking one of her hands and leading her upstairs.

And that's how they ended up here.

Mechanically, _I'm glad you're alive_ sex is the same as regular sex, but the grip is tighter, the movement more desperate. She's trapped between the two of them but she doesn't feel restricted. She feels cocooned, draped in them. The warmth should be stifling but instead it's life-giving; the slickness should be uncomfortable but it's texture on texture, sheen to collect on their tongues. Jemma's skilled mouth is on her neck, shamelessly leaving evidence (in the morning she will take some makeup to the marks, apologizing profusely while Skye giggles and Fitz tries to make more), fingers working her clit tirelessly; and Fitz is already inside of her, arms wrapped around her and hands on Jemma's waist, holding the three of them together as Skye rides him.

Part of her thinks this is a dream - an elaborate and semi-inappropriate coma fantasy. But it feels too real. The goosebumps on Jemma's skin are drastic and widespread, a field after a wildfire. Fitz behind her is indelicate but measured, giving because he knows she can take it, because he can't hold back. It takes herculean effort not to ask if it's real because she isn't willing to be disappointed.

It seems to be all about her tonight, but she doesn't want it to be. Because: they kept whispering in her ears as they freed her from her clothes about how much they missed her, Fitz kept apologizing for letting her go in alone and Simmons kept rambling about how scared she was; and for as much pleasure as Skye feels, there's a constant tension behind her face as she tries not to cry; she almost _died_ and they prevented that, they called in favors and hunted down answers and stayed by her side; because _because_. They deserve it as much as she does.

Fitz, brilliant Fitz, matches her thrust for thrust until it's too much. Pleasure wicks within her; as she comes, Jemma catches her in a kiss, bites her lower lip to keep her anchored and quiet, ever the tactician. Fitz is only a second behind her, groaning into her shoulder.

Her body is stiff from a few weeks underuse, but they stretch her out.

XXX

("So just to be clear," Skye starts, and this isn't really pillow talk, but light is filtering through the tiny window in Jemma's bunk, setting everything in yellow, and Fitz is literally asleep face-down in her breasts, so she figures she's entitled. "Are you bisexual?"

Jemma smiles a little, bashful. "I'm definitely Fitz-sexual. I think I'm also Skye-sexual."

Somehow that is the perfect answer.)

XXX

They don't bother pretending it won't happen again. It was too fucking rad to be a singular occasion (Skye's words, although they all agree).

And life goes on pretty normally for a while; Skye's impressed that Fitzsimmons are capable of keeping it under wraps, what with Fitz's undeniable desire to brag and Simmons' notorious inability to keep a secret. But each time they part ways there is a tacit agreement - _this is private, this is for us._

So they carry on working. She doesn't ask if Fitz and Simmons are together, if they get together some nights without her, if they've been together all along. She doesn't want to know. She still brings her laptop down to the lab to work near them. They solve cases; they chase leads towards the Clairvoyant, toward Deathlok. They come together every so often, and it makes all the fear worth it.

(The best part – and you'd have to torture Skye at this point for her to admit that it's the best part – is after it's over, after the three of them are sore and sated and laughing, Simmons always says _sleepover_? And she never says no, because she is never expected to. They pile up, get under the covers, and she learns all the little details. Fitz snores, Jemma drools, and supposedly Skye steals the covers. Tonight Jemma is in the middle, but they take turns, and even so, Fitz always manages to cuddle them up so much there is no left, right, or center, just a squished little mountain of people.)

XXX

They're upping the ante a little bit today.

"I think I'm going to take a shower," Jemma says suddenly, with the strange voice she used for playacting.

"Would you like to take a shower, Skye?" Fitz asks.

"Uh," she says. "I'll probably take one when Jemma's done?"

Jemma huffs in annoyance. "No, _do you want to take a shower, Skye_?"

"Oh! _Oh_."

They had never done anything outside of one of their bedrooms. And a small part of Skye thought she should say no, but she couldn't think of a reason good enough to appease the majority of her that wanted to say _fuck yes_.

They aren't very sneaky people, but they manage to make it to the shower without any trouble.

Jemma steps under the spray first, and Skye moves eagerly to follow, but Fitz holds her back. "Don't touch her yet. Just watch."

She quirks an eyebrow and takes his hand, and they both step into the shower.

"Oh, _shit_," Jemma moans, but she's not even touching herself, just standing under the spray, hands in hair, eyes closed. "_Fuck_."

Not that she isn't quite a sight, water flowing over perfect skin, but the sounds she is making are unholy. She worships at the altar of hot water and soap and cleanliness. It would be funny if it wasn't so painfully erotic.

After a minute she seems to remember other people are there. Skye watches as she opens her eyes from her apparent ecstasy and gives them a disparaging look. "Stop staring."

"Fuck," Skye says weakly.

"I just like to shower, okay? I like it a lot. Is it weird?"

"_No_," Skye says.

"Definitely not," Fitz says, equally transfixed.

"Don't stop."

"Never stop."

With their powers combined, it doesn't take long for Fitz and Skye to have Jemma bent over, hands against the cool tile, the spray ricocheting off her back as Fitz pushes deeper. Now her moans are different, and Skye enjoys the show, breasts pressed flush to Fitz's back, arm snaked around his waist to cup his balls, guiding him further and faster and harder.

Skye presses a sweet kiss to Fitz's shoulder and then bites down hard. He is so thrown off he slips out of Jemma completely, and Jemma herself whines loudly, needily.

Skye grins. She won't ever get used to this.

XXX

(Never in the heat of the moment does she feel this way, because she's too distracted by them, but sometimes after it's over, or before it's begun, and they're closed up in their room, Fitz and Simmons will share a kiss so achingly perfect, delicate and raw, Skye stops breathing. Her jealousy is unholy. But they haven't made any promises. They are what they are, an indivisible entity, and she is (supposedly) notoriously flighty. Is friends with benefits still a thing, or has it been tried and tested and deemed impossible? Because she's starting to lose her grip on the line between _I'm fucking my two best friends_ and what invariably comes after.)

XXX

Things never stay safe for long. Skye knows this better than most.

In Skye's opinion – and it's an opinion shared by Ward and May and AC himself – Fitz and Simmons should never go off alone. They never passed their field assessments (_hypocrite_), they aren't good under pressure (_hypocrite_), and they just in general aren't equipped to handle field work (_Skye you are such a fucking hypocrite_).

But they do anyway. Ward is distracted by bad guys, May and Coulson are distracted by the bigwigs, and Skye is on the ground with a laptop trying to stop a signal that might literally kill all of them. Fitz and Simmons are running around downstairs, searching creepy basement lab by creepy basement lab for evidence of chemical warfare. Skye feels more anxious than usual, and she lets it seep into her typing.

"Done," She says, "It's shut off."

"Yay, Skye!" She hears Jemma cheer through her ear piece. Ward, who's knocked out all the bad guys, rolls his eyes, and Skye stamps out the urge to shove him.

"Have you guys found anything?" Ward asks.

"Yeah, hold on," Fitz says. There's a beat, then static, then shrill, heart-pounding feedback that sends Ward and Skye scrambling to pull out their earpieces. It only takes a second for Skye's heart to fall out of her chest, and it takes one more for both her and Ward to run down the stairs towards them.

"Guys?" She shouts frantically.

"In here," Fitz says, voice coming from a large metal door down the hall.

"What's happening?" Ward asks sharply.

"The lab is booby-trapped. We tripped an alarm."

"Are you okay?" Skye says, staring hard at the door.

"Yeah," Fitz replies.

"Simmons?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," she replies weakly. "There's a problem, though."

Skye exchanges a glance with Ward.

Fitz continues, sounding very far away. "The doors are pressurized. We can't unlock them. And they're filtering the oxygen out of the room."

Slow suffocation is a cruel way to die. Skye swallows hard.

Ward takes a few steps away, trying to explain what's happening to Coulson and May through the coms.

Skye places a hand on the door. "Guys?" She probes weakly, speaking lower so Ward can't hear. "It's going to be okay."

"Yes," Jemma affirms, but she doesn't sound as sure as she should, and Skye bites her lip hard so she won't say anything to make it worse.

XXX

They calculate that they have an hour of time to find a way out, but each minute inside brings more senselessness. Skye sits with her back against the outside wall, and she can feel the steady stream of air being pumped out.

Coulson said again that the only people that can solve this problem are Fitz and Simmons. They know this is true now, because for the last forty minutes Skye has tried to get the doors open electronically, and when that failed, to stop the mechanism. And Ward and May tried, mostly out of anger, to bust the door down, to no avail. Fitz ends up finding a solution – he has a makeshift de-encryption mechanism hooked up to the control panel, looking through every combination of the eight-digit disengage sequence. It races on, and there is nothing to do but wait.

There are a lot of combinations to go through and not a lot of time left.

Every once and a while she calls one of their names, just to make sure they're still there.

"Jemma?"

Skye hears a mumble.

"Her head hurts," Fitz says, a bit clearer.

"What about you?"

"Fine, I s'pose," he murmurs, and Skye knows that voice as how he sounds when he falls asleep. Not that long ago, she wouldn't have had any idea, but that gift was bestowed upon her divinely. She falls silent.

Why, with the weight of secret agents and geniuses and weapons at her back, she feels so powerless is something she will never understand.

Skye feels herself sink into heartbreak with each failed moment, but she doesn't make a noise until she hears Jemma's first airless sob. Only then does she transform. She is a fountain spraying nonsense at the closed door. She is an open wound, begging for relief. She is alone.

XXX

The doors open and they are sitting against the wall, eyes closed, holding each other.

XXX

They survive. They wake up gasping. The med kit in the van has one oxygen mask. They pass it back and forth between the two of them during the shock-silent trip back to the Bus. Skye sits between them in the backseat; Jemma falls asleep in her lap and Fitz rests his head against her shoulder.

The threat is gone, but she has never felt more terrified than right now.

XXX

(They go to separate beds that night. Skye wants them close to her. Skye never wants to touch them again. Skye wants to feel their hearts beat under her hands. Skye wants to cut their tethers, burn the ropes.

Skye can't ever leave them for long.)

XXX

This time, it isn't beautiful, it isn't fun. It's rough and desperate. Skye now unwillingly knows what it is like to have _I'm so glad you're alive_ sex from the other side.

She's hungry. Fitz joins her between Jemma's legs and they feast. Skye can feel her pulse beating, pink clit to pink tongue, and it's more satisfying than anything. She gets distracted momentarily, Fitz's skilled tongue finding hers for a moment before they refocus and redouble their efforts.

Jemma has a hand on each of their heads as she comes. She pulls hard on their hair. She doesn't apologize.

Skye gets up quickly as Jemma swoons, because there's no rest for the wicked, or at least for the polyamorous, and she knows Fitz is ready to go. He rolls over languidly but she climbs him immediately, lining them up and sinking home. He looks surprised, so does Jemma actually, but Skye is starving and can't let a moment waste. The fullness is rich, a luxury she cannot afford. She's riding ruthlessly but it's too jagged, she's reckless and unfocused, she's disintegrating. He sits up to slow her down, catches her eyes, wraps his arms around her. The sheer amount of skin-to-skin contact is unfailingly comforting. Jemma sits up from the headboard and crawls over to them.

She feels their concern and wants to look away. She doesn't want this to be about her again. She wants to make them feel how she felt the first time, but she wonders if she's spread too thin. She's not enough.

She launches forward and catches Fitz's lips. She can't look into his eyes anymore. She starts to move again, achingly slow this time, and he lets her. One hand goes to his chest to feel his life affirmed, the other is snatched by Jemma, who is also holding one of Fitz's. Jemma leans forward and kisses Skye's face a few times over before meeting her lips; Skye tastes the salt and realizes she's crying. Jemma's free arm goes around her and they hold her close as she rides out the unforgiving waves.

XXX

"Sleepover?" Simmons asks quietly.

Skye can't remember a time she felt like this before. She lies down in the middle of the bed. They enclose her on either side.

"How did this start?" She asks.

"How did what start?"

"The two of you."

She waits, feeling the two of them exchange glances.

"We met at the Academy," Simmons starts.

"I was pretty much alone in the beginning," Fitz continues. "I didn't have any friends. But the first time I saw Jemma I fell in love with her."

"But you never said anything."

"And you came up to me in the library one day and said 'you're Leo Fitz,'" and he starts to do some dumb imitation of Jemma's voice, and Skye smiles in spite of herself. "'You and I are the youngest cadets to ever be here!"

"And then we got into our first argument about, oh I don't even remember what, but by the end you were smiling so much—"

"Because I knew that you were exactly what I was looking for."

Jemma doesn't continue. She can't. She's smiling too big. They let the sentiment hover over them.

"So you're in love," Skye says to the ceiling.

They get bashful, which is adorable and upsetting in equal measure.

"Yes," Jemma whispers.

"Maybe I shouldn't be doing this then," Skye murmured. "I shouldn't get in the middle of it."

She could feel Fitz frowning into her shoulder.

"We invited you," he says.

"We want you to be here," she says.

"No," she hears herself say, "It's not right. I should go." And suddenly she is out of the bed, pulling clothes out of the pile, avoiding eyes. She opens the door wordlessly, closes it soundlessly. She makes the absurdly short trip to her own bunk. She realizes too late that she is wearing Jemma's underwear and Fitz's t-shirt.

Growing up at the orphanage, she learned how to keep quiet when she cried, learned how to keep things private and contained. Her pillow is an anchor she drags down to the depths and drowns.

XXX

Skye insisted on team breakfasts a while ago, but today she regrets it. The table is silent. She never realized before, but the three of them were the ones who were always filling up the air; their supervisors aren't particularly loquacious people to begin with, but they engage in the conversation when they are called upon to do so.

The absence is sharply felt. Sitting here with a disintegrating bowl of Lucky Charms is a special kind of torture they don't teach at the Academy but should.

"What's wrong with you three?" Ward finally asks.

Skye stands suddenly. "Excuse me."

And Coulson doesn't even pull out the _manners, young lady_.

XXX

She didn't know where to be. She tries to work from her bedroom, from the lounge. She goes to the cockpit and is distracted by the clouds. Coulson's office is too dark. The holocom is too bright.

She isn't sure where she fits now.

XXX

The knock is tentative. It shatters her resolve instantly. The whole day was lost with them. She says _come in_. They do.

"I'm sorry I left," she says as they sit down. "I just think this is turning into something…different for me. Different than it is for the two of you. And I should have just been an adult and said that yesterday instead of running out."

"Different how?" Fitz asks.

She doesn't know how to translate the rawness she feels into words. Something is growing inside her, tender and green. She's not afraid of them; she is afraid of herself.

"You guys are a unit. You function perfectly together. You don't need me, even if I want you to."

"We want you to," Fitz says.

"We want to be _your_ unit," Jemma says softly. She threads her fingers through Skye's. "We want to be yours."

She is brimming with need, humming with abundance. Somehow they're all holding hands now, three knots of fingers. They aren't spread out; they're all resting in her lap in a huddle.

If she is in love with them, so be it.

XXX

The next time they are docked, Jemma insists they go on a_ proper romantic date _(Jemma's words, although they all agree).

She lets her natural bossiness dictate her, and Fitz and Skye sit back and grin and watch as she fusses over reservations and a dress and her hair.

The whole concept of a real date is kind of laughable to Skye, because they live in close quarters and spend all of their time together anyway, but she isn't going to deny herself the pleasure of letting them see her in a new dress.

The restaurant is too nice for them, really – last week Skye watched Fitz drop a grilled cheese on the ground and eat it anyway because he was too lazy to make a new one. But they slide into a circular booth, close and cuddled together so they can hold hands under the table; and they order a bottle of wine and Fitz gets carded, and neither of the girls bother to stifle their laughter; the candlelight flickers dangerously and threatens to go out, and it would probably be better if it did because Jemma almost knocks it over telling a story about the Academy; and Skye is pretty sure this is the most fun she's ever had on a date, but she shouldn't be surprised, because now she knows friends make better loves anyway.

XXX

(Sometimes, after Jemma says _sleepover?_ they turn out the light and whisper secrets.

"Do you know that I love it when you yell at me? Because it's the same way you yell at Fitz. It makes me feel like part of your team, like it matters what I do."

"I used to think I was stupid. My grades were always shite; I never paid attention. I never talked because I assumed nobody had any interest in me. But I got perfect scores on some test and they pulled me out of school. I don't think I've shut up since I left Scotland."

"I never wanted to fall in love when I was younger. Nobody ever paid attention to me. I never expected any of this to happen…"

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I love you.")


End file.
